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I see brushes labeled for sale as drybrushes. What makes a brush a drybrush? Can I use any old brush for that purpose?

Also, I have a ton of old brushes from a art supply store. They are nothing special, just various sizes priced around .99 cents per. Should I chuck them and get mini specific brushes?

What is a good set of brushes to get started with? I've actually got an old (circa 2004) Citadel brush set brand new from back when they were included with the mega paint set. These good or junk?

How do you determine brush size? In other words, if I am watching a tutorial, and they say use a "P3 Hobby Paint Brush Base" and I don't have that brush, well what size should I use?

So I've got some 2 year old Vallejo game color paints. It looks like the color separated on them, but after a vigorous shaking, they seemed fine. Are they fine?

I'm probably overthinking this but anything else I should know that I haven't asked?

Thanks a bunch!

Any brush can be a drybrush but you'll get best results with the stiffy/firmer bristles, usually synthetic.

The new GW brushes are quite good... if you want to go higher-end there is of course Raphael and Winsor and Newton.

Size also depends on the brush. Those two high-end brushes I listed - you could use a large, size 2, and the tip will still be so sharp that you can do fine details with them.

My vallejo paints are older than that... still good.

 Phobos wrote:
I see brushes labeled for sale as drybrushes. What makes a brush a drybrush? Can I use any old brush for that purpose?

Also, I have a ton of old brushes from a art supply store. They are nothing special, just various sizes priced around .99 cents per. Should I chuck them and get mini specific brushes?

What is a good set of brushes to get started with? I've actually got an old (circa 2004) Citadel brush set brand new from back when they were included with the mega paint set. These good or junk?

How do you determine brush size? In other words, if I am watching a tutorial, and they say use a "P3 Hobby Paint Brush Base" and I don't have that brush, well what size should I use?

So I've got some 2 year old Vallejo game color paints. It looks like the color separated on them, but after a vigorous shaking, they seemed fine. Are they fine?

I'm probably overthinking this but anything else I should know that I haven't asked?

Thanks a bunch!

Drybrushing really requires a brush with a dense set of bristles. Most brushes have volume to hold wet paint to apply. With drybrushing, you don't want wet paint but mostly dry. Brushing nearly dry particles to the surface.

Citadel set is not bad. I use mostly GW brushes myself I have two W&N series 7 and they are definatly a superior brush. Other brands exist too such as Raphael I believe. The best brushes are natural sable hair.

P3 Hobby brush seems to be equivalent to a GW Standard brush, may be basecoat brush. Number sizes, it is probably a 1 or 2.

Nearly all paint will separate. If it is largely fluid after shaking and mixed then it is fine.

Rosemary & Co. are another solid choice for brushes, noted as much for their low price point as their quality. They're based in the UK, though, so overseas shipping can bring the price for US buyers up in line with their more expensive competitors, like W&N.

Also, don't chuck those old brushes! It's well worth getting yourself brushes for miniature painting that are better suited to the task, but there are plenty of cases where you specifically won't want to break out the good stuff. Solvents like toluene (plastic glue), turpentine, isopropyl alcohol, and the like wreak havoc on natural bristles, so synthetic or throwaway brushes are wanted for oil washes, spot-stripping, solvent-welding, etc. Sufficiently dense brushes can be used for drybrushing, which is more than a little rough on the bristles - consider drybrushes expendable/consumable. Cheap brushes are also sufficient for less precise tasks, like basecoating terrain, general washes, and spreading glue.

I do probably 98% of my work with four or so brushes, but I also have dozens that I've picked up over the years, from clunky Crayola plastics to bargain bin white nylon to coarse bristle chip brushes. All of them have seen some use, at one time or another, and likely will again. I don't have to feel bad about binning them when they start failing, since I have more than enough backups. They're useful enough that if I ever see some dirt cheap, I'll pick them up, knowing they'll see some use eventually.

Brushes made specifically for drybrushing are typically made of thicker, coarser bristles. The citadel line uses an ox hair/nylon blend, while their detail brushes use Kosinsky sable hair.

Drybrushed have flat ends unilke the other brushes that are pointed. The point of a dry brush is to only paint the edges or roughness of an object.

For instance if you look at your thumb nail you'll see it has little ridges on it. If you drybrushed your thumb nail it would only leave paint on the tops of the ridges and leaves the rest unpainted. In fact this is a good way to test your drybrush to make sure you don't have too much paint on it.

To do this you dip the end of the brush into the paint then wipe off most of the paint. I like the brush it on a piece of paper a few times to get almost all the paint off.

The GW brushes are ok, the army painter ones are no better than walmart value pack brushes (in my opinion). That being said the walmart value pack brushes arn't too shabby for a painter on a budget though they tend to fall apart quicker.

I do almost all of my painting with a GW standard brush.

Drybrushing is one of the 'abusive' techniques, so a good option is using a synthetic brush, as they are cheap and more durable. So that's a perfect use for those cheap art brushes.

The 'golden sable' brushes sold by the art stores are synthetics that try to mimic softer natural brushes, I've been using them as my abuse brushes lately.

Also, seeing as your are in the USA, i use the dick blick or utrecht store brand red sable brushes. Great, great brushed for 5-8 bucks each. Also if you sign up online you will get 25% off coupons galore from them. Treat them well and you will get some good life from them.

I also use my ac moore and micheals 40% - 50% off coupons from less important brushes. I dont buy good brushes to use with oil washes and vallejo liquid metal paints. I get 2-3 dollar brushes at half price.

Unless your painting is already the mutts nutts you should be able to get away with any old pound land brushes, I sure do.

 Phobos wrote:
I see brushes labeled for sale as drybrushes. What makes a brush a drybrush? Can I use any old brush for that purpose?

As others have said, a brush with stiff bristles (such as the ones GW sells as drybrushes) are better suited, since you want to hit only bits that are proud of the surface, rather than have a soft brush hit the recesses. My GW drybrush doesn't look great anymore, but it works fine even though it suffered through loads of Leadbelcher base coat drybrushing.

 Phobos wrote:

Also, I have a ton of old brushes from a art supply store. They are nothing special, just various sizes priced around .99 cents per. Should I chuck them and get mini specific brushes?
What is a good set of brushes to get started with? I've actually got an old (circa 2004) Citadel brush set brand new from back when they were included with the mega paint set. These good or junk?
How do you determine brush size? In other words, if I am watching a tutorial, and they say use a "P3 Hobby Paint Brush Base" and I don't have that brush, well what size should I use?

All brushes are worth saving. Even if it is just to apply white glue to the base. Other used brush things are washes.
Assuming a tabletop standard paintjob, you don't really need a lot of brushes. Besides really big surfaces, the tip of the brush will be the same size, we are just talking carrying more paint. So many painters use either that one large brush or a slightly smaller one for most of the painting. Then a tiny one for really tiny things and a drybrush. That's it really, plus old brushes as already stated.
The best brushes you can buy for painting with our acrylic water-based colours are natural hair brushes from artist supply stores, since they hold more paint than synthetic. They are a little bit more expensive (think GW standard brush level), but at the tiny sizes we need, it doesn't really matter.

 Phobos wrote:

So I've got some 2 year old Vallejo game color paints. It looks like the color separated on them, but after a vigorous shaking, they seemed fine. Are they fine?

It is normal that paints settle. Shaking isn't optimal, since it creates bubbles, but it does work. Stirring, rolling or using a paint mixer (which you should always switch off before removing it from the bottle) is better but takes longer. It can also happen that bottles were not properly closed, water evaporated and the paint is thicker than it was supposed to be. By adding (destilled) water and mixing it throughoutly you can recussitate it.